However, As I Am On My Travels, I Must Endeavour To
Accommodate Myself To Circumstances." So I Endeavoured To Compose
Myself to sleep; before, however, I could succeed, I heard the
sound of stumping steps coming upstairs, and perceived a
Beam of
light through the crevices of the door, and in a moment more the
door opened and in came two loutish farming lads whom I had
observed below, one of them bearing a rushlight stuck into an old
blacking-bottle. Without saying a word they flung off part of
their clothes, and one of them having blown out the rushlight, they
both tumbled into bed, and in a moment were snoring most
sonorously. "I am in a short bed," said I, "and have snorers close
by me; I fear I shall have a sorry night of it." I determined,
however, to adhere to my resolution of making the best of
circumstances, and lay perfectly quiet, listening to the snorings
as they rose and fell; at last they became more gentle and I fell
asleep, notwithstanding my feet were projecting some way from the
bed. I might have lain ten minutes or a quarter of an hour when I
suddenly started up in the bed broad awake. There was a great
noise below the window of plunging and struggling interspersed with
Welsh oaths. Then there was a sound as if of a heavy fall, and
presently a groan. "I shouldn't wonder," said I, "if that fellow
with the horse has verified my words, and has either broken his
horse's neck or his own. However, if he has, he has no one to
blame but himself. I gave him fair warning, and shall give myself
no further trouble about the matter, but go to sleep," and so I
did.
CHAPTER XXXV
Brilliant Morning - Travelling with Edification - A Good Clergyman
- Gybi.
I AWOKE about six o'clock in the morning, having passed the night
much better than I anticipated. The sun was shining bright and
gloriously into the apartment. On looking into the other bed I
found that my chums, the young farm-labourers, had deserted it.
They were probably already in the field busy at labour. After
lying a little time longer I arose, dressed myself and went down.
I found my friend honest Pritchard smoking his morning pipe at the
front door, and after giving him the sele of the day, I inquired of
him the cause of the disturbance beneath my window the night
before, and learned that the man of the horse had been thrown by
the animal off its back, that the horse almost immediately after
had slipped down, and both had been led home very much hurt. We
then talked about farming and the crops, and at length got into a
discourse about Liverpool. I asked him how he liked that mighty
seaport; he said very well, but that he did not know much about it
- for though he had a house there where his family had resided, he
had not lived much at Liverpool himself, his absences from that
place having been many and long.
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